Sirens were blaring, scientists were frantically evacuating the building, and a custodian was dead. The cooling system for the reactor had failed during an attempt to create a new synthetic element. Outside the Donovan Tech nuclear power plant, instead of fleeing, would be a male who watched the ensuing chaos a mile away. Satisfied with his work he would hop back into the cab and return to the city. At the plant two other men would be among the first victims of the meltdown. The first, Jonathan Stein, would be passed out in the facility corridor. The second man, his brother, Grant K. Stein, an aspiring nuclear physicist, would be no more than a charred skeleton and soot. The entire plant would shake and tremble. An earthquake could be felt for miles around, for the power plant had exploded. The smoke from the aftermath would be carried east by the winds to the city and beyond. It would be the worst disaster of 1982 for the tech giant. The Donovan Tech nuclear reactor had exploded during a test to create a new synthetic element, Epimethium. The radiation from the element would spread throughout the city of Arlington. Leading to the emergence of abnormal individuals, humans bearing superhuman qualities—supermen. Named after the titular Superman of comics.

Some supermen would pick up the cape and mask for better or for ill. Others would hide their abilities, preferring to live the quiet life. Jonathan would be one of those people, however his life became anything but quiet. Unable to cope with the death of his brother, he fell back onto an old romance with heroin. With tough love and a beat down or two, his brother Grant had gotten him out of that toxic marriage before. However, his brother was no longer around to beat any sense into him this time. The dead cannot help the living anymore than the living can help the dead. As Jonathan was at home wallowing in grief, these new humans began to take center stage. There would be a steady rise in superhumanity, not just in Arlington City, but among the entire human population. By 1984 more than sixty million humans across the globe had manifested a superhuman ability of some kind. From 1982 and 1984 Jonathan, going under the villain name of Hardware, was making his name as a drug dealer selling cocaine in New York. He would be confronted for the final time by his greatest foe, the vigilante Scarlet Centipede.

In a fight that lasted hours and spanned several city-blocks. Scarlet Centipede would defeat Hardware and turn him in to the authorities. Not before exchanging a few words that would set him on a path to become the greatest hero the world would ever see. By 1987 that number of superhumans rose to over eighty million, equal to the population of a small country. It would be while he was at his lowest that a disaster would form in 1990. A group of supermen calling themselves the Millennium Order would arise early in March. At the onset, the Millenium Order were no more than a group of villains who had assembled to better support one another against the threat of superheroes. However, their leader Optimus Dread had founded the group for a greater ambition than to make a refuge for villainy. He desired to dominate the “lesser” sub-species of humanity, and grant everyone superpowers beneath the iron authority of the Millenium Order. So as to solidify their tyranny by the time everyone had become super.

In response to the existence of this organization a group of the world’s greatest superheroes would create the Justice Creed mid-March. Alongside the emergence of new humans came the increased occurrence of unusual phenomena classified by the Advent Organization to be APs (Anomalous Phenomenons). In response to developing world events, a coalition composed of the United States, United Kingdom, and France, would create Advent to protect normal humanity from the threat of anomalous entities and superhumans. Things did not slow down there, for in late April of 1997 mankind would come face to face with its first extraterrestrial race—the Hylæons. A race of humanoids who bore a strikingly close resemblance to mankind physically and genetically, with the stark difference being the horns on their heads, and their capability to mimic and generate a specified form of inorganic matter or energy. The Millennium Order would attempt to take Hylæons hostage and steal their advanced technology, however, Advent and the Justice Creed would join forces together to thwart the plans of the Millennium Order.

The confrontation would be what sparked what would be considered the golden age of superheroes. The Hylæons had crashed down exactly onto Black Bear Prison, the supermax prison built in the early to mid eighties to hold superhumans. In this prison would be Jonathan. When the ship crashed into the prison, it killed 20% of the inmates, and released 80% of the inmates spared from the impact. To make matters worse the Millennium Order would arrive and offer the prisoners a chance to join their ranks. Offering protection in return for helping them take hold of the Hylæon ship. The Hylæons of course did not stand idly by and fought back against their attackers. Amidst a chaotic battle the Justice Creed and Advent forces would arrive to aid the Hylæons. Among the members of the Justice Creed would be the Scarlet Centipede, who would be among a dozen heroes going head to head against Optimus Dread. The man who was most likely one of the strongest villains on the planet.

With his telepathy and ability to manipulate gravity he was nigh-unstoppable by all but a few. The sole saving grace were his physical limitations being that of a normal human and overwhelming confidence in his power. Due to having so few capable of opposing him, Optimus Dread never went all out in a single battle. It was to make clear to his opponents that any victory or loss he took was by his own hand. Today, however, that would soon change. Scarlet Centipede came careening through Jonathan's cell wall. She would have tumbled through the next wall had Jonathan not have caught her. Scarlet had no strength left in her to fight, and Optimus sought to finish her off. He asked for Jonathan to place her on the floor, which he did. Then Optimus approached to flatten her windpipe beneath his boot. As soon as he raised his foot Optimus Dread would be sent soaring out of the prison. Optimus would crash and skip on the ground like a pebble on water, and the entire Millenium Order would freeze to witness history unfold before their very eyes.

Standing before their leader lying in the impact crater would be Jonathan. Optimus calmly got up, dusted himself off, and would increase the gravity around Jonathan by nine times. Jonathan was not phased by the feat, many superhumans were not. So Optimus more than doubled it to twenty times as much. Jonathan was able to defy the pull of gravity with his telekinesis, though weak in range it was strong in power and dexterity. The battle between Optimus Dread and the hero Symmetry (the name Jonathan chose after the fight) would go down in history as the torch that would light the Golden Age of Heroes for the next decade, and arguably the next millennium. After the battle the Hylæons were given refuge in America and would remain in Maine. In exchange for refuge they would impart some of their technological advances with the U.S. Government. Symmetry would be key in human to Hylæon relations, having the respect of their leader Bera after the battle against Optimus Dread.

Bera and Symmetry would end up being romantically involved, and eventually marry in late December of 1999. A year later they had a child together in December of 2000. Bera would give birth to a baby boy who they named Maxwell Killion Stein. His middle name being shared with his late uncle Grant Stein. Scarlet Centipede, whose government name was Sandra Flores, would offer Jonathan a job at her tech company. Things for Jonathan were changing for the better. For the first six years of Maxwell's life there would only be joy. His father was the world's greatest superhero, his mother was the leader of a whole race of alien refugees, and his Sandra was the wealthy aunt who'd spoil him. Unfortunately, nothing good in this world was eternal. Without explanation Bera and the Hylæons would leave the earth without explanation. While Jonathan showed no outward distress, Maxwell was hurt as to why she left and so distanced himself from anything associating with his mother. The young boy took all the pictures of his mother around the house and hid them away so he would not have to see them. Eventually he did not even want to be in the house anymore. His father and him would move into the condominium Sandra was at, picking a unit just across from hers.

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A few years would pass since then and up until high school, he lived a relatively normal life (for someone who was the son of Symmetry. In his freshman year of high school Maxwell's powers began to manifest. It was difficult for him to control his abilities, not the abilities he had inherited from his father, but rather what he inherited from his mother. In times of rage his body's composition would change into magma without his consent, and he would end up causing problems at school. With the help of the Advent Organization the incident would be covered up. Maxwell would be moved to a school where the children of heroes composed most of the student body. His father put mental blocks on his mind to keep his powers in check, until his junior year and would help him try to contain the powers he inherited from his mother. Besides that hiccup, Maxwell managed to have a good life with his father, though that too wouldn't last. The hero Symmetry would die in a battle against his brother Grant Stein.

Grant Stein had survived the events at the Donovan Tech Power Plant. Becoming a walking talking source of nuclear power. After the accident 1982, Grant had been documented to have died from lobotomy. For when the medical examiner checked the body, they'd find that Grant's brain would be missing. It was cleanly atomized from within his skull. It was seconds after his death that Grant would awaken in the Sea of Chaos. The transtemporal ocean would rend his essence, tearing it apart and reforming countless times on a quantum level. His essence would be stretched to its limit like rubber, passing through infinite worlds until it snapped, returning to the cosmic ocean. In this period of endless time and boundless space, he would bear witness to it—absolute dread. Standing against this massive warmongering entity would be an automaton. Within it, for a brief period, he would witness a young man adorned in golden armor, commanding it.

Grant would witness far more than just that. He would witness the entire causal sequence of infinite events which led up this battle of cosmic grandeur. The amount of information which bombarded his consciousness would damage his psyche. Among these endless events was one where he slaughtered the villain Optimus Dread and the hero Symmetry. It was this event that would play endlessly in his damaged mind. Leading to an eventual fixation to carry out what he thought of constantly. The universe, mindless yet sick and twisted, would allow Grant the opportunity to kill Symmetry. He materialized at the center of Arlington City, declaring his identity, his desire to kill Optimus Dread and Symmetry, and plans to destroy the city in an atomic explosion. Jonathan of course would immediately be made aware of his late brother's apparent "revival'. As well as their odd plan to kill him, Dread, and destroy the city. Grant would fly over to Black Bear Prison where Dread was being kept.

Once there he would break into Optimus Dread's cell and fry his brain from the inside out with microwaves. Jonathan was too late to stop him from killing Dread, but he still had time to stop his brother from returning to take out Arlington City. Jonathan would try to reason with his brother, but he kept repeating his threat to kill Dread and destroy their city, over and over again. Something was wrong but Jonathan didn't have the time to figure it out. The Justice Creed were on their way to help Jonathan when Grant's energy began to spike drastically. He intended to go nuclear halfway back to Arlington. If he couldn't go there to detonate himself, then he'd create an explosion large enough to reach the city. Which meant he would destroy countless cities in the area. Grant was going to bring about an atomic disaster worse than any bomb made by mankind. While he was building up gamma energy, Jonathan decided to use an absorption ability he learned from a villain. His plan was to slow the buildup by taking in the energy.

No matter how much he absorbed, his brother was generating far more energy than he could keep up with. At this rate he was becoming a bomb like his brother. If both of them were to explode this would be beyond devastating to America and perhaps the world. There was no more time left to stop things when the Justice Creed arrived. Jonathan, the hero Symmetry, would request one thing in his final moments. For Scarlet Centipede, Sandra Flores, to take care of his son Maxwell. Unable to stop or save his brother, Symmetry moved Grant, who was too preoccupied with charging up at this point, to space. He took them as far as he could out of Earth's atmosphere. One might have thought he could've just abandoned his brother in space and left. Even so, Jonathan could not do that, he'd keep trying to absorb what Grant was building up. Though futile he wasn't going to give up saving his brother to the very end. At the very end of it all, moments before detonating Grant had broken off script. He would grab hold of Jonathan tightly, crying and apologizing for what he was fixed into doing.

His visions of the future, if an immutable outcome could even be called that, all made sense now. Both were at the limit of energy their bodies could sustain. The two would explode miles above Earth's atmosphere. The explosion was visible across the entire western hemisphere. The death of Symmetry was widely mourned by the world, and especially the nation. In Arlington City they even made a statue to commemorate his ultimate sacrifice. Once dead the man was practically made a Saint to all heroes, inspiring the new generation to live up to his legacy. Despite what the world thought, Symmetry's son Maxwell had a far different view of all this. Ever since his mother's disappearance he became somewhat of a cynic. Seeing the world for what it is. To Maxwell, being a superhero brought you nothing but meaningless pain and suffering. No progress could be made with the way the world was now.

At one time the thought of doing what his father did was all he ever dreamed of. However, after his death it didn't seem to be so admirable anymore. Maxwell had all this potential for power but he wasn't planning to waste it on saving people. People who swiftly forgot the good his father did when he occasionally failed or made an error while saving their lives. How many times did they accuse Symmetry of returning to his villainous roots as Hardware? Enough times for Maxwell to lose count. Sure this happened mainly in the beginning of Symmetry's career, but the doubt of his father's genuine love for justice was never truly gone. Maxwell did not care about possibly continuing his father's legacy as a hero. Though he understood and accepted that with great power came responsibility. So he arrived at what many would consider a villainous conclusion. If he was responsible to protect the world, then he could best do this by ruling it. It was unmistakably the ideology of a comic book villain to be sure, however, Maxwell did not see it that way.

To put this plan in motion he had to make sure he was one of the strongest and smartest to walk the earth. Though he inherited the powers of the man who was the world's greatest superhero, he was still just a teen and his abilities were underdeveloped. That probably would not have been the case if he stopped going to that school for heroes. However, what Maxwell lacked in power he made up for in intellect. The key to his success would be a project he'd been cooking up with Sandra for the last three years. It would be his sole work, his magnum opus until the end of time—Mettatron. Using the money and resources of Symmetry Technologies he was able to build the instrument to reach his goals. Symmetry Technologies was built from what remained of Donovan Tech, a company owned by Sandra's older sister and brother-in-law. Bought by Centipede Inc. and re-branded with the help of Symmetry who became co-owner of the company. Mettatron would be built in an abandoned factory no longer in service to the company. It would be "sold" to Maxwell to operate within, for the purpose of fulfilling his ultimate goal to save the world.